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Inside Politics

Ryan Comments On Trump's "Shithole" Remarks; Oprah Beats Trump In Hypothetical Match Up; Arizona's Martha McSally To Seek Senate Seat; Letterman's First Post-Late Show Guest: Barack Obama; Trump Predicts Medical Exam Will Go "Very Well"; Trump Cancels London Trip, Blames Distaste For New Embassy; World Leaders Condemn Trump's Vulgar Comments. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 12, 2018 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:30:04] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's about African countries, it's about immigration, which is tied in to your job because, well, you have a week from now there's another deadline on the government shut down. Immigration is a big part of that.

His comments obviously inflamed debate that's not hard to inflame, but, you know, so really. What's your reaction?

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I started my day on 7:02 yesterday, so I wasn't sure what you're talking about which the FISA thing.

Yes, I read those comments later last night. So, first thing that came to my mind was very unfortunate, unhelpful. But you know what I thought right away? I thought about my own family. My family like a whole lot of people came from Ireland on what they called coffin ships then. Came here and worked the railroads. The Irish were really looked down upon back in those days. I hear all these stories from my relatives about Irish need not apply. We could basically get construction jobs, cops or firefighter jobs.

And James and Katherine Ryan came over, literally, worked the railroad until they had enough money to buy a farm which happen to be outside of Janesville, Wisconsin. Then their son, my great grandfather started railroad and painting (ph) business with horse plows and it's an earth moving business to the day run by my cousins.

It is a beautiful story of America. And that is a great story. And that is a story we have today. And that is the story we had yesterday and that is what make this country so exceptional and unique in the first place.

So, I see this as a thing to celebrate. And I think it's a big part of our strength whether you're coming from Haiti. We've got great friends from Africa in Janesville, who are doctors, who are just incredible citizens. And I just think it's important that we celebrate that.

Having said that you're trying to ask me about DACA, I think that's --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, yes, they needed in plains that you have.

RYAN: Yes, right. So --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are trying to broker a deal, right?

RYAN: Yes. So.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you do that with this?

RYAN: So, we just have to get it done. I'm actually hopeful that the talks that actually started about a week ago. We've been talking quite a bit. It's not as if we haven't been. But we started at the White House with an agreement that the four deputies, the number two leaders in the House and the Senate, because Dick Durbin is the number two guy in the Senate, he sort of the leading Democrat on this issue. Kevin McCarthy of California, understand this issue really well. Our Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer in Maryland, and John Cornyn, Texas border state guy knows the issues really, really well.

The four of them have started bipartisan talks trying to aggregate all the ideas that are out there to come to a consensus. Do we need to fix DACA, yes, we need to fix DACA. But I think it's really important we fix it in such a balance way that it gets strong bipartisan support that it be does it in thorough ways, that we don't have a DACA problem five or 10 years down the road. You don't want to just fix the symptom and not the root cause. So, you got to deal with that and see -- you have a balanced DACA solution that has a security components along with the DACA fix, and then that gets you a bipartisan support for fixing a lot of this broken immigration problems.

So, that's what I want to see come out of this which is -- not just some little discreet fix for this particular little problem. But let's put together a solution that starts knocking down some of these other thorny problems we've got in the immigration system.

Ultimately, I think we should go to American based immigration system. And the reason I say that is, let's just -- look -- we sort of fix it on labor force and I was talking about workforce development. If we get every single able-bodied American who is not now working or looking for work, you know, and close that skills yet, get them from poverty into the workforce. We're still going to need people in this country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right, you don't want to ship 200,000 Salvadorians. Is that correct?

RYAN: Yes, right. Well, that's the TPS thing. That's -- yes, but I mean -- but I'm just saying --

(CROSSTALK)

RYAN: Correct. But I'm just saying we still need to -- I think we need to rework our immigration system so that the visas are not given based on, you know, relations other than the nuclear family, but -- are based on skills, based on what we need. We're going to need people with our dairy industry in Western Wisconsin. They need people in the vegetable industry in California. We're going to need, you know, after we find every single software engineer in Southeastern Wisconsin for (INAUDIBLE) we're going to need more, you know, that kind of thing.

So, that's why I think, I'd like to take this opportunity to fix this particular problem which does need to get fixed. I'm going to also try and knock down some of the other problems. We can get some solutions here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does it get attached to the spending bill?

RYAN: No, we won't do that. We have to keep those separate because that's just not good government, it just wiping (ph) all the stuff together. So, I think people are attaching them in their minds as far as leverage is concerned, but they won't be technically attached as far as legislation is concern.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, is there going to be a government shut down?

RYAN: No, I don't think there will be because I think we're making progress on what we call the cap steal (ph), that's something that I'm working on with Schumer, and McConnell, and Pelosi.

[12:35:04] I think we're making progress on that. But I think the Democrats -- and I understand why, it's about the only leverage they have. They want to see a path for DACA. They want to see that it's not just going to get kicked down the road, that it's going to get resolved. I want to get it resolved, too. That's why I want to get this caps agreement resolved because, frankly, my big concern there is our military. We have hit our military --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In other words, you want a longer term bill instead of those conversations --

(CROSSTALK)

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: There's the House Speaker, Paul Ryan. He's back home in Wisconsin, Milwaukee there doing a live interview. A couple of interesting points. Number one, he says he's still hopeful to get a compromise on so-called DACA Dreamers. He says it will not be directly connected to legislation to keep the government open. But he's confident there will not be a government shut down at the end of next week when the time runs out.

Most importantly, the speaker being asked about the president's comments yesterday where in a meeting with bipartisan group of lawmakers. He used the term "shithole" to talk about countries in Africa. Saying, "Why would we want people from "shithole" countries allowed in under any new immigration policy?"

He also spoke discouragely (ph), sources tells us about Haitians, the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, the top Republican in the land next to the president and vice president of the United States saying those comments were, "very unfortunate and unhelpful." And then we talked about to show you the program, (INAUDIBLE) it really. They're going on to talk about his own -- his families immigrant Irish heritage and how unwelcome the Irish were at the time. And about how his doctors in Janesville, Wisconsin were immigrants, incredible citizens, he said, immigrants from Africa.

And then, yes, making a case for merit-based immigration but on the sense that we need people to fill whether it's farm jobs, whether it's medical jobs, whether it's this job or that job not based on -- they're from Haiti or Africa. We don't want them. On the very unfortunate and unhelpful, what's the significance of that from the Republican Speaker of the House?

PERRY BACON, FIVE THIRTY EIGHT: I guess he criticized Trump? I mean this -- I mean it's hard -- how to look at it. I mean, listen to answer, he did criticize Trumps remarks. He gets critique (ph) mark, (INAUDIBLE). Get it as quickly as possible.

Now his answer was, he defended Haitian and African immigrants. So, he does not agree with Donald Trump's stand. That's important. The Republican Speaker -- he does not have immigration views Donald Trump does. But in terms of, will Paul Ryan criticize very deplorable comments from Donald Trump? Sort of, kind of, in a most mild way possible. You know, he does now want the headline to be Ryan attack Trump. He wants it to be very mild about it.

KING: On a number of points, number one, I wish we could question him directly. You're right, number one, it's clear, unhelpful, very unfortunate, he doesn't like them. He wishes thye hadn't said.

Then I think it's -- in going on to give his answer he's like, Mr. President, watch this. Here's how you can actually talk about immigration to achieve your policy goal without using repugnant language. Offensive language, many say racist language some would say. But also the speaker has to be well aware if he gets into a public fight with the president of United States in a mid-term election year, who knows.

SARA MURRAY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, who knows. But I think --

KING: It worth the fight?

MURRAY: But I also think like -- when we've seen most of their responses, you know, maybe Mia Love excluded, most of the responses from Republicans have been along the lines of, you know, unfortunate and unhelpful. We're not hearing the same kind of, sort of impassioned pleas for the president to understand why what he said was so wrong, or so offensive, or so unacceptable.

And frankly, like, maybe Republicans have just lost their moral standing on this issue because they now spent nearly three years dancing around deplorable comments this president has made that are tinged with race meeting. And they haven't, they haven't ever been able to express to him this is wrong. We're not going do it. We're not going to go along with you if you speak like this. Nine times out of 10, they fall in line behind him.

KING: In strong direct line, would you make a key point. Now, what is different between then and now in the sense that we go back to the 2016 campaign. Remember Judge Curiel who was overseeing the Trump University case, he's an American citizen from Indiana, I believe. An American citizen his families of Mexican decent, the president said he couldn't handle a case involving him because he's Mexican and the president had tough use on immigration.

At that point you heard the speaker just now, absolutely right, Perry, gently. It's very unhelpful. It's unhelpful and it's very unfortunate what the president said. Not I condemn what the president said. Not with the president said was -- listen to Paul Ryan back then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN: I disavow these comments. I regret those comments that he made. I don't think -- claiming a person can't do the job because they're racist sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment. I think that should be absolutely disavowed. It's absolutely unacceptable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: What's the difference?

MICHAEL BENDER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, I think part of the difference is he's trying to get like you were alluding there, he's trying to get to a deal. And you could see Paul Ryan there squirming in the sea. And part of the frustration has to be that, I don't think they are that far away on some of these things. And the suggestion that Paul Ryan was sort of giving Trump a template on how to speak about this.

Trump is capable of this. I mean, it's been far overshadowed. Part of our interview yesterday before this, you know, before this other story came out, we talked to him quite a bit about immigration. I mean, he still wants a wall, but there are some flexibility there. He is not -- he doesn't want to talk about comprehensive immigration yet. But says it's a possibility. And when a team comes to DACA, he urged his party to have some flexibility on it, talked about -- looking at with his heart. Talk about -- he talk about DACA and looking at it through a lend common sense and wanted to get to a deal.

[21:40:30] So there is some -- this is not to defend what he said or to ignore it at all, but only to point out that he is capable of this when he wants to. And for Paul Ryan, it's got to be incredibly frustrating for this to overshadow an ongoing negotiation.

KING: Capable in one meeting when he wants to, but then also very capable in another meeting of pulling the pin and making things a hell a lot more complicated, and then opening a spotlight. Again, forget the policy on who he is as a human being.

Up next, President Trump says he feels good today as he did when he was 30. But is the Oval Office taking a toll the president, right now on his way to undergo his first physical as commander in chief.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:45:37] KING: A quick look now, some other things on our political radar right now. Do people love Oprah Winfrey? Yes, they do. Do people want her to run for president? Mostly no.

A new poll last register voted that they wanted Oprah to run in 2020. More than half of those who responded said no, 33 percent said yes.

In that same poll, people were asked use your imagination Oprah versus Donald Trump, a hypothetical presidential election. The results, 50 percent for Oprah, 39 percent for Trump, the other 11 percent, not sure.

A new candidate in Arizona Martha McSally, Republican congresswoman, throwing her hat into the ring officially announcing today she's running for the U.S. Senate. McSally retired Air Force colonel, a fighter pilot, flew combat missions over Afghanistan, her formal announcement playing up for military experience and tough leadership style.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARTHA MCSALLY (R), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Like our president, I'm tired of P.C. politicians and their B.S. excuses. I'm a fighter pilot and I talk like one. That's why I told Washington Republicans to grow a pair of ovaries and get the job done. After taking on terrorists in combat, the liberals in the Senate won't scare me one bit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: McSally running in a crowded Republican primary for the Senate seat left open by Republican Jeff Flake who's retiring.

And look who David Letterman had as his first guest on his new Netflix talkshow, POTUS 44, Barack Obama, almost one year into civilian life. The former president telling David Letterman he still faces immense challenges even though no longer has the stress of being leader of the Free World.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FMR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Malia, who's very thoughtful, she says, hey, dad, you know, I've got this, you know, lamp in this box and, you know, put the desk lamp together, you know. I said sure. So I grab it and, you know, it should have taken like five minutes or three minutes, you know, and I'm sitting there and I'm just toiling away at this thing and it's taking a half hour, and meanwhile Michelle is finished scrubbing and she's organizing closets and all this and I was just pretty pathetic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Pretty pathetic right there from the former president. The current president, Donald Trump, expected to get his first official medical exam as commander in chief this hour. He's on the way to Walter Reed Medical Center at Southern Suburban Maryland. The president's prediction for today's checkup?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it going to go very well. I will be very surprised if it doesn't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It is the president's first check up as we said. Let's take look a little look at some history there as we go back and look. This is the president as we know. He's 71 now. The last time he got any medical update was during the campaign when he was age 70.

His doctor told us his height is 6'3. His weight they told us then, 236 pounds. BMI, 29.5. And we were told the president was taking a Staten, that's for cholesterol issues, and low-dose aspirin, a lot of Americans, men specially take low-dose aspirins when they get into 50s and higher. That was president then.

Let's go back the very first physical of the President Barack Obama. The first year in office he was age 48 big difference in age. There, 6'1, 180 and BMI 23.7. What did we learn about him? Anti- inflammatories, nicotine replacement.

Remember the president was a former smoker. He struggled with that quite a bit. That was the big discovery out of the first physical. Still struggling, even though he said he's not smoking anymore, but it was described as being in excellent health and fit for duty.

George W. Bush, the president before him, age 55, his first physical. Late, in the first year in office August 2001. Six feet tall, 190 pounds, there's the BMI. Meds just a multivitamin, occasionally cigar, no drinking, ran four times a week, swims, weight trains. Summary, outstanding health, fit for duty.

Back in the campaign we were trying to get a lot of questions, remember, from Donald Trump about his health. He did talk to Dr. Oz about how important it was American's trusted that their president was fit for duty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: When you're running for president, I think you have an obligation to be healthy. I just don't think you can do the work if you are not healthy. I don't think you can't represent the country properly if you're not a healthy person. I actually, and I don't know if this make sense, I feel as good today as I did when I was 30.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now. Sanjay what will the president be tested for today? How much, the bigger question I guess, should we, the public expect to learn? DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as far as what he's going to have done if it's representative of the past physicals that you showed there, it's a pretty exhaustive exam about four hours long. He's 71 years old, so, you know, the big focus on someone whose 71 years old is always going to be their heart.

[12:50:08] You mentioned, he takes a cholesterol luring medication. His cholesterol was pretty good. The last time we saw it 169. What has been the impact of all these hamburgers and fish sandwiches and chocolate shakes and the lack of exercise that he's had? What has been the impact of that on his health? That's one of the things that doctors are going to certainly want to probe, but focusing on his heart, focusing on risk factors for stroke, focusing on risk factors for cancer as well.

As part of most primary physicals, John, they do ask about anxiety, they do ask about depression, they do ask about stress. That doesn't mean there is actual testing around those things but it's more of a back and forth discussion that usually takes place between patient and physician about these things.

You get a bunch of tests, you get a bunch of test results of this some sort of disclosure today, probably about how it went, but then it takes a few days for those results to come back and we'll probably hear those next week.

KING: They say we'll get a briefing on that next week. As you know, well aware, there's been a lot of discussion recently about whether the president is fit to lead, a mental fitness question. You write on cnn.com that it's bothersome from a medical perspective to conflate behavioral traits to questions about his mental health. Explain what you mean.

GUPTA: Well, first of all, I mean there's a lot of arm chair diagnosis going on here. And, you know, that there's rules on this thing as far as professional stance goes, but, I think more to the point is, you know, diagnosing someone with mental illness is a challenging thing to do, you can't do it from afar and you shouldn't do it from afar because it involves a lot of sustained contact with the patient and talking to them and talking to acquaintances to really come at that diagnosis, which is a serious diagnosis.

So people, first of all, just from their arm chair's calling someone the specific mental illnesses, I think really just -- doesn't serve anything. The other thing we just mentioned quickly is, what is the second sentence then, John? Because someone has a mental illness, they cannot what, they cannot hold a job, they cannot hold office? We know a lot of people who have had mental illnesses that have had big jobs and held office. So, just urge a little caution there as referring a lot these terms around, John.

KING: Excellent point. Dr. Gupta, we'll invite you back next week when we get more details on what happens, what we learn from the president. We'll have you back to talk about it.

Moving on to another big story, President Trump cancelling plans for his first official trip to United Kingdom, perhaps America's closes ally. On the world stage, the president was to officially open a new American embassy in London. So, why isn't he going? Well, here's his explanation.

On Twitter, of course, "Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located embassy and finest embassy -- excuse me -- in London for "peanuts," only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars. Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!"

Facts matter, we have to say that too often on this program but facts matter, here they are. The Bush Administration made the decision to move embassy back in 2008. That decision was made not as a real estate transaction, it was made because officials worried the old site was vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

More likely reason the president isn't going, hundreds of thousands of protesters expected have gone to London. Let's talk a bit about that. Number one, why? Why does he just have to make something up and blame Obama?

I'm laughing about it but it's actually not funny.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: It's not funny. He's the president of the United States. This is not a reality TV show.

OLIVIER KNOX, YAHOO! NEWS: Pure face (INAUDIBLE). Pure face (INAUDIBLE). The idea that he would be met with hundreds of thousands of protesters in the streets as you say, America, there's no closer ally, I'll put it that way than Great Britain, it would be a bit of a slap in the face. And in fact, today if you look at -- in terms of the embassy there, if you look today, his own ambassador, Woody Johnson, an op-ed, it's running in evening papers right now praising the embassy, praising the move, explaining why it happened, explaining that it was financed through other real estate sales not through a new injection of taxpayer money.

His own ambassador, basically, breaking -- and a long time supporter breaking with the president on this particular issue.

KING: It's stunning to me. And what does it say? I want to get to the broader issues of -- there's a lot of follow up from yesterday, the president's comments about African nations and about Haitians. But what does it say, let's pretend for a second yesterday didn't happen, just that simple question. It say, the president of the United States was faced mass demonstrations if you travel to the country on the planet earth that is considered the most special relationship, as they always say, the most critical, the most valuable, the most dependable U.S. ally, what does it tell us?

BACON: He would claim, it shows that he's doing America, first, really well. I mean, that's the whole campaign was about, people (INAUDIBLE) like and it's good. He would go abroad like Obama and we don't -- really care about that. In reality, foreign leaders do not like him, they criticize him, the mayor of London has been attacking him aggressively and said, please, do not come. And that would not have happened with President Obama or President Bush. But it is a remarkable that foreign leaders at times list the ones you don't have deal them on policy tend to say, please don't come.

KING: And he often says we are respected again in the world. I think that's a questionable assertion by the president of the United States.

[12:55:04] Just today, from the U.N. High Commissioner for Civil Rights, there's no other words to used but racist. That's about the president's comment yesterday. The government of Botswana, "We view the utterances of the current American President as highly irresponsible, reprehensible and racist."

The Somali information minister, "Those comments do not deserve a response." Haiti's Ambassador to United States, "Either the president has been misinformed or he is miseducated."

RACHEL BADE, POLITICO: Look, I think this -- all these sort of falls with its backdrop which is that President Trump is totally rewriting American foreign policy. This comes, I think, what a week after he decided to cut off aid from Pakistan, I mean, which is a country that we have had a working relationship with as we try to fight terrorism within the Middle East.

Also, this whole thing about potentially pushing back a little bit on South Korea. And North Korea right now trying to use South Korea to sort of wedge between the relationship with the United States and South Korea. So, I mean this is just one of like many things that he is doing right now that some people are going to question the wisdom of, but that certainly show he is changing everything.

KING: We are about to hit the one-year mark than he does his -- drawing up a lot of controversy. We'll see. We'll keep tracking it.

Thanks for joining us in "Inside Politics", helping (ph) us through the breaking news. Be back here Sunday morning too 8:00 A.M. Eastern, hoping you wake up and join us. Wolf Blitzer takes over after a quick break. Have a great weekend.

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